Free The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress by Penny Jordan Page A

something else—something more practical.’
    Charley gave a small sigh, whilst Raphael digested her words in silence. He would certainly not have described Charley as either awkward or plain. It was true that hers was not the chocolate box variety of ‘pretty’, but in Raphael’s estimation Charley possessed something far more potent. His body certainly thought so, from the way it responded to the delicate air of hidden sensuality she carried with her.
    ‘But I was offered the course so they let me do it. I was less than a year into it when our parents were killed. Then we found out there was no money and that the house, our childhood home, was heavily mortgaged and would have to be sold. Lizzie, my elder sister, was working in London at the time for a topnotch interior designer, and then Ruby told us that she was pregnant. She was only seventeen. Lizzie and I both felt so guilty; she was practically still a baby herself. We had to do something. We couldn’t just abandon Ruby and her babies as the babies’ father had, so Lizzie moved back to Cheshire and set up her own small business, and…’
    ‘And you decided to sacrifice your own plans in order to earn money to help support your family?’
    ‘It wasn’t a sacrifice,’ Charley protested immediately. ‘We wanted to stay together and support one another.’
    ‘Maybe it wasn’t a sacrifice then, but I think you feel that it is now,’ Raphael corrected her. ‘I think that now, here in Italy, you have become aware of all you have denied yourself.’
    Charley couldn’t look at him. Was it just her plans to take a Fine Arts degree and all that went with it to which he was referring? Or had he guessed about the other things she had denied herself—things like being free to be herself, and not the family tomboy, to explore and enjoy her sexuality as that self? She hoped not. That would be too humiliating for her to bear.
    ‘Being in Italy has made me realise how much I would have enjoyed studying art,’ she admitted in a stifled voice, unable to look at him as she did so. ‘And of course the recession has changed things. Before it happened I told myself that if my job got too unbearable I could always leave and find another one, and that maybe one day I’d get the opportunity to study and travel, but now of course that’s impossible. I do wish—’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘There’s no point in talking about what one can’t have, and I am very grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to work on something so very special.’
    Inwardly Charley cursed herself. She had done it again—admitting that she was grateful to him, humbling and even humiliating herself, making herself far too vulnerable by her tacit admission that she so desperately wanted to be part of the renovation project. Maybe so, but at least she had been true to herself and to her own code, Charley comforted herself. She couldn’t pretend that she had no wish to be involvedin the project to renovate the garden when the exact opposite was the case.
    Raphael turned away from Charley, not wanting her to see in his expression the feelings he didn’t even want to acknowledge to himself. Her speech, her gratitude, the fact that her emotions about the garden were so in accord with his own, had rubbed against a vulnerable place within himself—a wound only half healed that he had believed until now was fully healed. Beneath the thin skin that covered that wound lay emotions and regrets so painful and dark that he could not bear to admit they were there. A whole adult lifetime dedicated to pretending that such a wound did not exist was now in danger of being ripped aside to reveal the truth. But that truth could not be acknowledged. He must adhere to the course he had set himself. He must not waver. Inwardly Raphael cursed Charley for the effect she was having on him, and damned himself for even thinking of weakening.
    Raphael’s silence made Charley feel anxious. Something had